The Two Fishermen

The New Fisherman

There once was a young new fisherman named Eli, who lived in a small town by the name of Clearwater. A town that, fittingly, sat beside a lake so still you could see your own reflection staring back at you, asking whether you really knew what you were doing.

Eli had heard that there was treasure in that lake. Not gold. Not silver. Commissions. People in faraway towns spoke of fishermen who cast a single line into the water and pulled up baskets of coins, simply by pointing other people toward good fish.

"It's easy," they said. "Just throw in a hook. People will bite." So Eli built himself a hundred hooks.

He tied them to every branch overhanging the lake. Blog-hooks. Video-hooks. Post-hooks. Comment-hooks. He stood on the shore all day, arms spread wide, shouting to anyone who passed: "Buy this! Buy that! Click here! Click there!"

Days passed. Then weeks. Not one fish bit.

Eli sat on a rock, exhausted, staring at his hundred silent hooks swaying uselessly in the breeze, and he began to wonder if the treasure was even real or if he was simply a fool shouting at water.

The Old Fisherman

It was then that an old man appeared, sitting a little further down the shore with a single line, a single hook, and a small woven basket beside him that was. Eli couldn't help but notice, half full.

"You've got a hundred hooks and nothing to show for it," the old man said, without looking up. "I've got one, and I've eaten well this week."

Eli walked over, half annoyed, half curious. "How? I'm shouting louder than you. I've got more hooks than anyone on this shore."

The old man finally looked up. His name, Eli would later learn, was Master Thaddeus, and he had fished this lake for thirty years.

"Tell me," Thaddeus said, "when you throw in a hook, do you ask yourself what bait will feed the fish? Or what bait will feed you?"

Eli opened his mouth, then closed it. He hadn't thought of it that way. Truthfully, he'd chosen every single one of his hundred hooks because someone told him the shiniest lures paid the biggest reward, not because he knew whether the fish even wanted them.

"Sit," said Thaddeus. "Let me show you what took me ten years to learn in one afternoon, if you're willing to listen."

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